

i9l THE RAMP 275 



certain matters that puzzled us at first. The Ramp is undoubt- 

 edly a moraine supported on the decaying end of the glacier. A 

 great deal of the underlying ice is exposed, but we had doubts as 

 to whether this ice was not the result of winter drifting and 

 summer thawing. We have a little difference of opinion as to 

 whether this morainic material has been brought down in sur- 

 face layers or pushed up from the bottom ice layers, as in Alpine 

 glaciers. There is no doubt that the glacier is retreating with 

 comparative rapidity, and this leads us to account for the various 

 ice slabs about the hut as remains of the glacier, but a puzzling 

 fact confronts this proposition in the discovery of penguin 

 feathers in the lower strata of ice in both ice caves. The shift- 

 ing of levels in the morainic material would account for the 

 drying up of some lakes and the terrace formations in others, 

 whilst curious trenches in the ground are obviously due to cracks 

 in the ice beneath. We are now quite convinced that the queer 

 cones on the Ramp are merely the result of the weathering of 

 big blocks of agglomerate. As weathering results they appear 

 unique. We have not yet a satisfactory explanation of the broad 

 roadway faults that traverse every small eminence in our im- 

 mediate region. They must originate from the unequal weather- 

 . ing of lava flows, but it is difficult to imagine the process. The 

 dip of the lavas on our Cape corresponds with that of the lavas 

 of Inaccessible Island, and points to an eruptive centre to the 

 south and not towards Erebus. Here is food for reflection for 

 the geologists. 



The wind blew quite hard from the N.N.W. on Wednesday 

 night, fell calm in the day, and came from the S.E. with snow 

 as we started to return from our walk; there was a full bliz- 

 zard by the time we reached the hut. 



